Art and Arcana: Commentary on the Medieval Scapini Tarot [Paperback]

Ronald Decker (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 282 pages
• Publisher: U.S. Games Systems (September 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1572814772
• ISBN-13: 978-1572814776
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,057,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Okay book, could have been better, July 9, 2010

By 

Mary A. Miller "Mary Miller" (Columbus, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Art and Arcana: Commentary on the Medieval Scapini Tarot (Paperback)

The Medieval Scapini Tarot: Deck and Book Set

I have been using this deck since 1986. It is a terrific deck to use for its' symbologies, but the little book with it, (generic US Games book) lacks any connection with the deck. Luigi Scapini was utilizing much symbology from various tarot leaders of the 14,15 century as well as the 1800's from the Golden Dawn and it's relationship to various authors.

The Art and Arcana is an "okay" book, discribing where Luigi took his material from (spend a good 200 pages discussing his reasons for certain authors, history of Kaballah, etc) but spends little time discussing the actual cards, their specific symbology and why.

It is a good jump off point to go to other sources of information that Scapini drew from (Levi, etc) and could be exhaustively time consuming to find out why certain symbols are on specific cards to do more than a quick pictoral scan of what you think the pictures are about.

If you are a user of tarot cards, you must import time of querants question from other decks. These cards, while heavily decorated (sp), with faux golden embosement are extremely pretty, does not allow for seasons to show on the cards: you must know your tarot, draw your time frames from AE Waite/Coleman Smith's cards or elsewhere.

I bought this book in hopes of gaining further insight to the symbolisms on each card (all artists of any deck embellish their decks with their own symbologies based on religious understandings, cultural understandings or what they expect the card to represent, as a basis of divination), the problem with this book is that the author did not ask Scapini (as far as I know) directly, what he intended per card to represent, so it becomes a mixture of Golden Dawn history, the history of tarot, and the history of who he studied.

Personally, this book helps the reader find out where he/she needs to do next, but certainly does not answer the question: what did Luigi Scapini mean by putting a gambling table on this card? What was Luigi thinking?

Every culture has their own references to images: a flower can mean so many differing things to so many differing cultures.

While the book gives cursory definitions of the card's art work, mostly what this book is another US games definition of tarot cards minus the artist who drew them.